Work environments are in a state of flux, with the average occupational settings changing to adapt not only to the pandemic, but also in acknowledgment of how incorporating social justice frameworks can be a modern metamorphosis for the average organization.
To encourage this change on a local scale, the Princeton Mercer Regional Chamber is hosting a conference about how the business community can incorporate greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in their practices.
The 2022 NJ Conference on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion takes place Friday, September 30, from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Conference Center at Mercer County Community College’s West Windsor campus.
Tickets are $125 per person, and registration is available online at the PRMC website, princetonmercerchamber.org. Ellen Wagner, the CEO and founder of Cross Cultural Bridges in Princeton, leads a workshop on intersectionality as one of the day’s featured breakout sessions.
The consultant, communicator, and coach works to bridge the gap in organizational structures where issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion often fall. Wagner plans to break down the definitions of terms like “intersectionality” for the attendees so that they can “understand the different forms of oppression.”
“In order to call out people, or to change the corporate culture, we need to know what is going wrong, what might be improved, and we need to have a language so we can address our concerns or our challenges,” Wagner says, noting that this sentiment applies to not only the office, but also “in private life.”
After registration, networking, and breakfast, opening keynote speaker Michele Minter, who has been the vice provost for institutional equity and diversity for Princeton University since 2011, shares her perspectives. Minter’s address, as well as that of closing keynote speaker Dr. William T. Lewis Sr., both conclude with 15-minute Q&A sessions.
Lewis is the president of WillHouse Global, a DEI consulting firm. According to the PMRC website, he is a “nationally recognized diversity and inclusion thought leader” and author of the book “Sweet Potato or Pumpkin Pie: Conversations with My White Friends about Race.”
Then, conference guests must choose between one of three topics for each breakout session at 10 and 11:15 a.m., which include Wagner’s workshop, a panel on “Bridging the Gaps,” and another on allyship.
Wagner supports clients in both the U.S. and Europe, but with a focus on Germany. Her soft spot for the “Rhineland” — how she refers to the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia — is because prior to founding her own business, Wagner was born and raised in Cologne.
The German city is famous for its medieval, twin-spired Catholic cathedral, which is the tallest of its kind in the world and a notable landmark. Wagner studied business in Northern Germany, then lived in countries like Spain and Greece.
In her job as a hotel contractor, she facilitated “negotiations and conversations with people from different cultures.” This, she points out, might have meant her interest in “intercultural exchanges” has always been present in some form.
Wagner came from Germany to the U.S. in 2019 when her wife, Kerstin, needed to move for a position with Johnson & Johnson, where she is now an applied science lead in their self care department.
The two settled in Princeton, with Wagner a sizable physical distance away from the hospitality, management, and tourism industries she spent years in. Wagner recalls that even though she was also a certified coach with business expertise, she “needed to wait for half a year to get my working permit as an accompanying spouse, which is quite common.”
“You don’t immediately get the visa or the chance to work; some never get the chance to work,” Wagner explains. But out of that challenge came a realization that she could combine her talents together in service of expatriates, or anyone who lives outside of the country they are originally from.
Wagner, having received help and coaching herself for the drastic change, designed her mission of empowerment especially for accompanying spouses in similar situations.
“I thought this [was] really a great way to support families, and in the end, to support businesses,” she says. Her initiative started with offering a workshop to the German Consulate in Manhattan. The pandemic’s sudden presence forced her to change strategies, yet as she shifted to a virtual platform, Wagner’s impact grew considerably.
“I always liked and enjoyed [doing] workshops with bigger groups to have more impact,” she says, going beyond traditional, one-on-one coaching because of the idea that she could “support many people at one time” with further exploration.
“I figured out over time that the people approaching me for coaching are people who are facing discrimination just like me; I’m a Black person. I’m also a queer person, and because of that, I experience discrimination in the workspace, or also in my private life, and sometimes it’s hard to cope with that or to deal with,” Wagner explains. “It’s hard to tell and explain [to] people about your experience if they don’t know about that.”
With the visibility of the Black Lives Matter movement following George Floyd’s murder in the summer of 2020, she saw an increase in the companies looking for proper DEI education.
“I came up with the idea of an empowerment workshop with the focus on anti-racism. Meaning, if white people want to educate themselves about this topic, sometimes they’re very scared, because if they know only little about the topic, it’s very intimidating to start talking about these uncomfortable topics,” Wagner says, so she creates a “safe space” for asking questions, cultivating an environment “where people can feel safe, where they can learn, where they can grow, and where they can get empowered.”
“The goal of all my workshops nowadays is that people enter, they get educated, and in the end, they feel empowered, they feel good to be an ally, to do something good,” she adds, coordinating the chance to have these moments of open dialogue for various entities.
Recently, Wagner received her master of arts in business psychology from the West Coast University of Applied Sciences in Heide, Germany. She even based her thesis on the subject of “corporate culture to combat anti-Black racism in organizations,” and she also specializes in addressing “queer hostility” with her DEI work.
Following her overview of the words that will be used in the conference workshop, Wagner will have the group challenge “their perspectives on microaggressions,” which she defines as negative behaviors and “these very subtle incidents during day-to-day life.”
“It can be verbal, it can be just body language, something that people say, something that people do, and sometimes we don’t really recognize what we are doing, but it has a huge impact on the other person,” she says. “I have a very interesting exercise for that prepared, where the people can actually put themselves in the shoes of a person who’s been negatively affected; hopefully, we’re going to have enough time for a short brainstorming [of] how organizations can prevent microaggressions, what they can do to support and empower their employees.”
Wagner continues that this interactive experience will emphasize the person impacted, rather than the intention, as well as center the importance of examples. She recognizes that while theory can be efficient, her past workshops have shown her the “best practice” for people to know answers to the questions of “what worked, what went wrong, and how can I spot out discrimination? How can I understand that? How can I explain it to other people?”
Regardless of where people are in the learning process, Wagner says, she will convey the “key takeaways” that they can rely on for preventing future microaggressions, as well as ways to produce an inclusive work environment.
At the end of their one hour together, Wagner wants the “hands-on” nature of their activity to leave an impression, noting that while “the topic is very tough,” the workshop will have more of a “fun,” casual approach that even asks participants to use their phones at one point.
The “Bridging the Gaps” panel is moderated by TCNJ’s vice president for inclusive excellence, James A. Felton III, and features Elvie Gee of Bristol Myers Squibb, Stephanie Quappe of law firm Fried Frank, as well as Kerstin Wagner, who will all tackle the topic of “holding management accountable.”
If that last name sounds familiar, it is — Kerstin Wagner is Ellen’s wife, the J&J executive with several global healthcare and outreach experiences. Kerstin is an active member of Open&Out, J&J’s resource group for LGBTQ+ employees, as well as the founder of their first European chapter in Germany.
“She has been a huge advocate in the space of allyship,” Ellen Wagner says, admitting that while she is “really biased,” she still recommends checking out what Kerstin has to say regarding her experiences fostering a network of inclusivity for the pharmaceutical giant.
“Allyship” is about “the role we play in an inclusive workplace” and is the subject of the third breakout group. The panel includes Jairo Borja of Borja Consulting Group, Tanuja Denhe of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Barbara Lawrence of Rider University, and Gus Penarand of the NJ Pride Chamber.
After Lewis’ closing keynote speech, then other final remarks of the day, PMRC’s conference concludes with networking and book signing opportunities.
The DEI conference, as well as a few virtual workshops, will likely be some of Wagner’s final engagements for the year, as she is currently pregnant and expecting twins. But, in advance of PMRC’s event, her views on how to progress and maintain an intersectional, inclusive workplace are an indicator of how conversations can change a culture.
“I really want people to not make any assumptions about anyone, because you might just see one diversity dimension, which maybe in my case would be race, but there’s so much more, and people are so much more,” she says. “We are more than just this one identity, and if we’re able to look past that, it’s beautiful what we can discover and how much potential we can experience or discover with other people.”
“But oftentimes, because we only see one dimension, or just one feature, we have a lot of conclusions [about] how this person is and what the person might know. Because of that, and because we might be unintentionally discriminating or excluding this person, we don’t even get to that point,” she explains. “Talking about intersectionality in the way that I do it — with a session — is so that people can learn how to communicate better, to be more inclusive, and to be able to see intersectionality, to see that we are multidimensional.”
